This book examines journalistic strategies in terms of the appropriation of media logics in the conflict frame-building process. Relying on three models (objectivity, mediatisation and news framing), it interrogates the role orientations and performance of journalists who reported the conflict involving the ‘indigenous’ Christians and Hausa Fulani Muslim ‘settlers’ of Jos, a city in North Central Nigeria inhabited by approximately one million people. The book provides empirical evidence of the strategies and the representations of ethnic and religious identities in the conflict narratives focusing on the most-cited and vicious conflicts in Jos which occurred in 2001, 2008 and 2010. Thus, mediatised conflict research is revisited, placing media logics at the heart of the conflict. The text proposes Solutions-Review Journalism (SRJ) as a framework for conflict reporting, and argues that a review process is necessary to measure impact.

Violence in major cities of Northern Nigeria has been recurring since the nation's 1960 independence. Although many scholars have analyzed the violence through different perspectives and several solutions applied, violence have continued to prevail within the region. The ability to manage a conflict depends to a larger extend on the indepthness of its analysis. This book is not like any other written about this issue. It is a research study conducted under the guidance of USA Review Board and highly experienced academic scholars of Conflict Analysis and Resolution. It was categorized as the most comprehensive report on the conflict. Extensive literature review, related conflict theories and concepts were applied for proper analysis. The goal for this publication is to shed limelight to this perspective for possible solution to a conflict that has lingered for more than 40 years with genocidal deaths and massive loss of properties.

The primary objective of this book is to understand the nature of the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria. Boko Haram’s goal of an Islamic Caliphate, starting in the Borno State in the North East that will eventually cover the areas of the former Kanem-Borno Empire, is a rejection of the modern state system forced on it by the West. The central theme of this volume examines the relationship between the failure of the state-building project in Nigeria and the outbreak and nature of insurgency. At the heart of the Boko Haram phenomenon is a country racked with cleavages, making it hard for Nigeria to cohere as a modern state. Part I introduces this theme and places the Boko Haram insurgency in a historical context. There are, however, multiple cleavages in Nigeria ̶ ethnic, regional, cultural, and religious ̶ and Part II examines the different state-society dynamics fuelling the conflict. Political grievances are common to every society; however, what gives Boko Haram the space to express such grievances through violence? Importantly, this volume demonstrates that the insurgency is, in fact, a reflection of the hollowness within Nigeria’s overall security. Part III looks at the responses to Boko Haram by Nigeria, neighbouring states, and external actors. For Western actors, Boko Haram is seen as part of the "global war on terror" and the fact that it has pledged allegiance to ISIS encourages this framing. However, as the chapters here discuss, this is an over-simplification of Boko Haram and the West needs to address the multiple dimension of Boko Haram. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and political violence, insurgencies, African politics, war and conflict studies, and IR in general.

This book brings together a selection of articles on newspaper writing and reporting. It represents a resource book intended to sensitize would-be journalists to the arts of reporting and writing, and to the ways in which newspaper readership can be sustained in the age of online messaging. It will provide students of journalism and media studies, particularly in Nigeria, with the skills required by newspaper journalism, and is a response to the poverty of literature on newspaper journalism in Nigerian universities and colleges.

Why does religion become a fault line of communal violence in some pluralistic countries and not others? Under what conditions will religious identity - as opposed to other salient ethnic cleavages - become the spark that ignites communal violence? Contemporary world politics since 9/11 is increasingly marked by intra-state communal clashes in which religious identity is the main fault line. Yet, violence erupts only in some religiously pluralistic countries, and only in some parts of those countries. This study argues that prominent theories in the study of civil conflict cannot adequately account for the variation in subnational identity-based violence. Examining this variation in the context of Nigeria's pluralistic north-central region, this book finds support for a new theory of power-sharing. It finds that communities are less likely to fall prey to a divisive narrative of religious difference where local leaders informally agreed to abide by an inclusive, local government power-sharing arrangement.

The political economy problems of Nigeria, the root cause for ethnic, religious, political and economic strife, can be in part addressed indirectly through focused contributions by the U.S. military, especially if regionally aligned units are more thoroughly employed.

In Rage and Carnage in the Name of God, Abiodun Alao examines the emergence of a culture of religious violence in postindependence Nigeria, where Christianity, Islam, and traditional religions have all been associated with violence. He investigates the root causes and historical evolution of Nigeria’s religious violence, locating it in the forced coming together of disparate ethnic groups under colonial rule, which planted the seeds of discord that religion, elites, and domestic politics exploit. Alao discusses the histories of Christianity, Islam, and traditional religions in the territory that became Nigeria, the effects of colonization on the role of religion, the development of Islamic radicalization and its relation to Christian violence, the activities of Boko Haram, and how religious violence intermixes with politics and governance. In so doing, he uses religious violence as a way to more fully understand intergroup relations in contemporary Nigeria.

Nigeria¿s future as a unified state is in jeopardy. Those who make or execute U.S. policy will find it difficult to advance U.S. interests in Africa without an understanding of the pressures that tear and bind Nigeria. Despite this, the centrifugal forces that tear at the country and the centripetal forces that have kept it whole are not well understood and rarely examined. After establishing Nigeria¿s importance to the United State as a cohesive and functioning state, this monograph examines the historic, religious, cultural, political, physical, demographic, and economic factors that will determine Nigeria¿s fate. It identifies the specific fault lines along which Nigeria may divide. It concludes with practical policy recommendations for the United States to support Nigerians in their efforts to maintain a functioning and integrated state, and, by so doing, advance U.S. interests.